


Eulogies

by cuneifire (orphan_account)



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies), Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-12
Updated: 2019-06-12
Packaged: 2020-05-01 20:23:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19184917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/cuneifire
Summary: Seven things no one else is allowed to know.





	Eulogies

**Author's Note:**

> idek anymore.

 

Meeting Gellert was like seeing colour for the first time, like the whole world up until then had simply been in black and white. Godric’s Hollow was a cage whose door burst wide open when Gellert arrived, all gleaming colourless eyes and smiles that cut like knives across his face, a near imperceptible accent and a way of saying words like they were paramount, like they were  _ vital,  _ like they meant something. Albus had met people with intelligence, and he had met people who were clever, but never before had he met someone with such sheer  _ passion,  _ and all the intelligence and slyness and sheer force of  _ being  _ to back it up.

When they first shook hands, Gellert’s aunt smiling and Aberforth frowning and Ariana grinning in the total opposite direction, Albus could swear he felt electricity run up his spine, as if to say  _ this is like nothing you’ve ever experienced before, or will ever experience again.  _

.

Meeting Albus was very nearly a completely ordinary experience. Albus shook his hand in that firm but understated English fashion, wore clothes that were indicated him to be just above poverty. It almost could have been normal, boring. 

If for one thing. Everyone had always shied away from Gellert, even before his expulsion from Durmstrang. They regarded like he was someone to be hated, to be feared, or admired from afar. But they all looked away as soon as he caught their gaze. 

Albus looked Gellert in the  _ eyes,  _ and refused to look away. And his eyes were- brilliant, illumine, full of depths that stuck Gellert with such curiosity he almost felt dizzy. Gellert had met clever men, and passionate men, but never before had he seen someone with such intelligence, such drive. (And kindness too, though he would admit that on the pain of death and nothing else) 

When they finally stopped touching, Gellert could’ve sworn he was on fire.

.

Fighting evil, Albus figures, is easy. It’s just a shame he’s never fought with such clear headedness- his weakness has always been that Gellert will never truly be  _ evil  _ to him, never a canvas painted only in black and white. Gellert will forever be painted in colour, and every time Albus thinks of the atrocities he is committing, what the world will look like under his shadow, he will remember what Gellert sounded like when he laughed, when he’d thought he’d found the answers to all their problems, the same look he’d given when his eyes had caught on Albus’. 

Years later, when Gellert is locked away and Harry Potter is frozen under a cloak while Severus points a wand at Albus’ neck, he will think that if nothing else, Harry has been spared having to defeat someone he’d once cared about with all the ferocity of the sun. 

.

Fighting evil is easy when you know what it is. Gellert’s fought evil his whole life. Ignorance, the weak, the stupid, the inferior- they’re easy to crush, if not with words, then with actions. 

Albus is an unfortunate occurrence is an otherwise uncomplicated worldview. He has bright blue eyes and a smile that feels years past his age and whenever Gellert thinks about fighting him he gets dizzy, simply from the fact that he can’t help but think that  _ this was not how it was supposed to be.  _ He and Albus were supposed to rule  _ together _ . It makes him think of broken glass, but he  _ knows  _ that, knows it down to his magic and his blood and his bones. 

When it finally comes down to it, when the end is nigh and Albus is facing him from the wrong side of a duel, Gellert finally realises what he was waiting for. 

He laughs hard enough to break his spine.

.

There’s not a single moment of that summer he doesn’t remember. 

He thought he was misreading the signs, at first; Gellert was too brilliant to ever desire him, in the same way Albus wanted him. He may have found an intellectual match, but so often people fit in one way but not another, and he could not dare ruin the relationship with his dearest friend for a quick infatuation. And Gellert was exceptional, but not in the was Albus was; not so strange as to desire him in that same palpable way Albus so clearly desired him (or so his dreams told him, night after night after night). 

He passed it off at first; the casual touches, the way Gellert smiled at Albus in a way unalike to how he smiled at anyone else, how intense his gaze would be trained on Albus as he performed the most mundane of actions. He first thought it simply the novelty of finally meeting someone who  _ understood,  _ that it would wear off within a few days or so. 

But the feeling did not pass. It worsened. He still remembers the moment Gellert first reached over and first interlaced their fingers, lifted their clasped hands up and talked of the whole world under their rule and laws changed at a flick of their-  _ their-  _ wrists, how empires would fall at their feet. He remembers how he lifted Albus’ knuckles to his lips and kissed them, how Albus’ throat went dry. He remembers the first time Gellert kissed him, how it was dark and the stars were glimmering and Gellert smiled, in a way so different from any way Albus had seen before that his breath had caught in his throat as sometimes he swears he’s never got it back. He remembers the  _ heat,  _ the held glances from his furious brother and oblivious sister and Gellert’s unconcerned aunt, remembers the friction and the hiding and the sheer force of it all. 

He couldn’t forget it, even if he wanted to. 

No one ever really forgets their mistakes, after all. 

.

He remembers thinking he could take over the world, and he remembers thinking that summer was the last time he felt alive. 

Stumbling head first into inconvenient infatuation was easy: the fleeting touched, the held looks, the secretive smiles were all second nature to him. He didn’t truly  _ want  _ Albus: he much preferred not to ruin the true nature of their relationship for something as quick as a kiss. True immortals were either above love, or destined to become so. Holding Albus’ gaze as he pressed bony knuckles to his lips, under that apple tree with the rare English sunlight just filtering through, leaving him pleasantly warm everywhere- perhaps that had been where he’d gone wrong. Or perhaps it had been much, much earlier than that. 

Truly, he didn’t  _ intend  _ to kiss him. It was more like laughing when you were happy, or crying when you were sad, screaming when you fell. A natural reaction, something he should’ve been able to control. But they were staring up at the stars just beyond their reach, and it had felt like this: endless possibilities spreading out under their fingers, just within their reach if only they found the right clues. And perhaps they could’ve. Perhaps it was all possible. 

He still wonders, sometimes, but only when the night is dark and he cannot truly see.

.

Gellert had many lovers, before and after. Enough so that he lost count, that he only remembers them by one thing. A girl in Paris with lipstick strained on her cheek, a boy in Berlin with amber eyes. A woman with porcelain soft skin, a man with strong hands, a girl with a tattoo of an entire constellation across her shoulders, a boy who kissed like he was dying. Their voices, their words have all faded from his memory, until only little fragments remained. 

Albus was not like that. 

Albus is the exception in that Gellert remembers him with such vivid clarity that he swears that pyric summer could have been yesterday. 

.

Albus never did take up the proposition of love, again. He believed in it, of course; it is difficult not to, if for nothing other foolish hope. But he couldn’t quite ever find someone who knew his mind, body, entire  _ soul,  _ set the whole world on fire and laughed with him as it burned the same way Gellert had. 

He wasn’t sure he ever wanted to, either. The world had suffered enough from his blindness to Gellert; love may be a great power, but in the wrong hands it was also a weakness. 

.

Gellert never had much faith in the concept of  _ love,  _ but he gave up on it shortly after being imprisoned. No point to it, really. No point to much. Couldn’t even try to escape- no, he’d built the thing, and when he built something with a purpose he’d be damned if it didn’t serve it. Love was no exception.

Love never got him much anywhere. But it seemed his mind refused to listen to such. He always woke up from nightmares thinking they had been pleasant dreams. 

.

Albus regrets a lot of things, but he can never quite pinpoint them to the degree of precision he’d prefer. Meeting Gellert- No. Letting his love blind him- Yes. Defeating him in a duel- No. Sending him to prison for the rest of his life, where the world would never see such brilliance except to watch it degrade behind bars as some sort of perverse revenge- Yes. Never visiting- No. Never seeing him again- Yes, yes and yes. 

He can answer specific questions, but the wider scope is lost to him. If he were to be asked if he regretted loving Gellert, he would be speechless.

.

Of course Gellert has regrets. He’d just never admit them. He regrets meeting Albus, he regrets leaving when his sister was killed (he never could quite figure out which one of them it was that killed her, but he knew with all his heart it wasn’t Albus). He regrets starting the war. He regrets losing it. He regrets watching line after line of Muggles being lined up and  _ Avada Kedavra’d  _ without a second thought, and he regrets grinning while it happened. He regrets that he designed this damned prison so well. 

Losing to Albus in the duel was the worst decision of his life. It’s also the only one he hasn’t yet come to regret. He was so, so stupid, so  _ blind. _ He thought Albus would- he’d thought Albus would  _ save  _ him.

Ha. 

.

Albus had faith in love ever since his duel with Gellert. He had faith in its power, of course, but also in its limitations. He knew, realistically, that it would do him good to carry on. And he did. He taught at Hogwarts. He became so finely enmeshed in politics he could occasionally forget. He had students brilliant enough to save the world or destroy it, but never to set it on fire the same way Gellert had, no, even Tim Riddle was a mere imitation of Gellert's beliefs, his attitudes, his charm, a placated shadow with so much misplaced anger. 

Albus averted his eyes and kept himself busy, because it was easier that way. He learned that if you run fast enough, even your own conscience can’t catch up. 

.

The last thing Albus ever wrote to Gellert:

_ Gellert,  _

_ Perhaps it would do me good to lay down my beliefs for finality’s sake, as this is yet another one of my- how would you phrase it (your voice has become less and less clear in my head as time passes, but I still recall your smile as though it were yesterday’s sun)- pompous declarations, perhaps. Smug announcements. Irrelated stupidities.  _

_ I could never bring myself to regret my decisions in your imprisonment. You are, by all means, deserving of being locked up (and here I hear you yet again- ‘self righteous to the end, Albus’- and perhaps it is said self-righteousness that will be my doom, perhaps you are right). But some part of me admittedly wishes you were here, if only so I could see your face one last time.  _

_ Please forgive me. I believe I’ve become sentimental in my old age. If you can tolerate it, hold your nose for another minute or so.  _

_ Gellert, I refuse to regret any of my actions in regard to you since your decision to depart after the death of my sister. But I suppose it takes no harm to say I wish, perhaps, that things had been different. You were perhaps the only person I have ever truly felt- alive, in the presence of, in every sense of the word. Thank you for that.  _

_ I suppose I should thank you for a lot. You forced me to see my demons and face you. You made me realise my beliefs, and forced me to confront them, in that illusory and most likely coincidental way that I doubt even you could have ever planned, for all your cunning and wit. You taught me love, perhaps, a type I’d never encountered before and have yet to see since.  _

_ I believe my days are coming to an end, soon,- this poison seeps deep, and I feel my time is nearly done. I do not know where I shall be taken, but perhaps- and I say this with greatest hesitance- I shall see you there.  _

_ -Albus _

.

The last thing Gellert ever wrote to Albus:

_ Albus, _

_ I do not mince my words as you do. I have no intention of writing a novel on my life experience with you. Safe to say you need not a summary, as you have lived it all. Why you felt the need to give me a resumé I doubt I will ever understand.  _

_ Then again, I doubt I ever truly understood you. On some level, perhaps, more deeply than all others, but truly? Concisely? To the minute detail? You remain a mystery.  _

_ I shall, however, say this: If you intend to die, let it at least be for a worthy cause, because you were always too stupid for genuine self-preservation regardless. Let it be for a worthy cause because if you would lay your life down for it, then I suppose so will I.  _

_ Perhaps we shall see each other, but I doubt it. There are different types of afterlives for people like you and people like me.  _

_ -Gellert _

 


End file.
